Exotic pet store owners fighting by-law that would force them to give up rescue snakes, arachnids, and other animals

Debbie Grills, seen holding a rescued ferret, is co-owner of D & D Exotics in Oshawa.

By:Kate AllenStaff Reporter, Published on Sat Mar 10 2012

A screeching Nanday Conure parrot mimics the rising indignation in Debbie Grills’ voice as she speaks from her Oshawa pet store on Friday.

“They went through all of my kitchen cupboards. They threatened to lift up the lids on our incubators. They treated us like criminals,” says Grills, co-owner of D & D Exotics along with her husband Doug.

The “they” in question are the investigators who descended on the Grills’ home Thursday to execute a search warrant.

The “us” is Grills and her husband. But it could very well extend to their menagerie of beloved, exotic — and in Oshawa, prohibited — pets: 200 baby tarantulas being raised in individual Dixie cups, a dozen sugar gliders, and Tigger, a 5.5-metre-long reticulated python, among many others.

“They found everything,” says Grills.

Thursday’s raid was the latest skirmish in a battle with deceptively dull origins. For years, the couple has been fighting Oshawa’s Responsible Pet Owner by-law.

In Toronto, non-venomous snakes like boas and pythons are allowed as pets, provided they don’t grow longer than 3 metres. Sugar gliders, a type of marsupial, are also permitted. Ajax, Pickering, and Scugog, Oshawa’s neighbours in Durham Region, have similar rules — Scugog allows some types of tarantulas, for example.

Oshawa is stricter. All pythons and boas are prohibited, no matter the length. Sugar gliders and tarantulas are both banned.

D & D Exotics, one of the largest exotic pet stores in Durham region, was operating under a council-approved exemption to the by-law.

Besides their business selling regular animals, the couple also takes in rescued snakes, spiders, and other non-dog-or-cat creatures picked up by Durham authorities. Some of those animals are prohibited in Oshawa, like the 200 baby tarantulas Doug Grills nurtured from an egg sac found on a mature spider.

“What can I say,” says Grills. “We’re fascinated (by) every aspect of it.”

In January, the Grills’ received a letter from the city saying they had violated their exemption by “purchasing, selling, trading or releasing prohibited exotics.” Debbie Grills admits they have bought prohibited animals, but she says after fighting the by-law unsuccessfully, her “hands were tied.”

“(The city is) hurting my business, because people from Oshawa are not not buying these animals,” says Grills. “They’re going outside our community to Ajax, Pickering, Toronto. . . and bringing them back.”

“That position – the Grills’ – is not the same position of the city,” he says. “The by-law requires compliance with the standards that are approved by council. And presently, they are not complying with them.”

In January, the Grills told media they would spirit their hundreds of prohibited animals to “safe houses.” In fact, there was only ever one safe house: their own.

The couple could be facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and lost profits. But Debbie Grills is equally as concerned for her animals. The expert biologist who was brought in, she claims, exposed the nocturnal sugar gliders to daylight.

“Now they have diarrhea from the stress,” she says.

Conlin says investigators will be combing over the evidence captured yesterday and deciding how to proceed.

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